Foreign Desk

Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin and trusted adviser of Saddam Hussein who earned the nickname Chemical Ali after ordering a poison-gas attack to suppress a Kurdish uprising in 1988, has been captured, American military officials said today. American officials had believed that Mr. Majid had been killed in a bombing raid in April. But in early June, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there was a chance he was still alive.